I know what is good.

Serendipity

A favorite treat of mine as a kid growing up was something my parents would make in a blender. I think it was simply ice, water and a packet of hot cocoa mix. They called it Frozen Hot Chocolate and modeled it after the famous version served at Serendipity 3 in Manhattan. Little did I know at the time, but the frozen concoction I enjoyed as a child paled in comparison to the real thing.

Right now it’s so cold here in upstate New York that I feel like any hot chocolate would be a frozen hot chocolate.

But I’m neither here to talk about the weather, hot chocolate (frozen or otherwise) nor fanciful restaurants in the city. There is another kind of serendipity, a kind of happy accident. And I’ve been enjoying more than my fair share of it recently. For proof, check out my cheese story from earlier this week. For further proof, I submit the below.

Wow. I’m totally floored by this. In part because I have been a big fan of Real Actors Read Yelp from its inception. I’ve watched them all. I’ve laughed until I cried. And I hoped against hope itself that perhaps one day the producers would choose one of my nearly 500 reviews for a video.

You know, to be honest, I never even let myself hope for such a thing. I shudder to think how many Yelp reviews have been written, and the number of videos produced has only just rolled over into double digits.

A small part of me feels badly for Dante’s having to relive the experience of my ire now in video form. Especially since after the review, they got in contact with me and ultimately removed the offending spoons to replace them with ones that don’t cause pain when properly used.

At the time, some people suggested my original problem was user error. Others offered techniques for turning the spoon upside down and scraping out the yogurt with one’s tongue. Perhaps I just have an oddly shaped mouth. Regardless, true to my word I returned to Dante’s after they made the change and updated my review to a much more positive one.

I am a sucker for those canned mandarin orange segments over a bit of original tart. Maybe not when the temperature is hovering around zero. But spring will be here before we know it. Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself.

Like this:

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That’s funny because I was hoping one of the foodies in the 518 would get one of their reviews spoofed on this show. They did a good job with this one, though it’s interesting they used a woman instead of a man to reenact the review. She did a great job of accentuating the “first world problem” thesis of the review.

I’ve considered starting a spoof of this series called “fake actors read yelp” where people like me who have no acting ability at all try to do it and come across as really stiff and flub lines and all that. Maybe someday if I can find some other people that would be interested in doing it with me.

Sir Fussy, I have to come clean. I submitted your Yelp review of Dante’s to Joe Plummer. It was too good to pass up. My email to him dates from Sept 7, 2012, and I can provide you with verifiable data.